On top of the possibility of complicated reporting procedures, new regulations can also impact your tax obligations. The U.S, the ‘property’ ruling means your earnings will now be deemed as capital gains tax (15%), instead of normal income tax (up to 25%). Each countries cryptocurrency tax requirements are different, and many will change as they adapt to the evolving market. Before you start trading, do your homework and find out what type of tax you’ll pay and how much.
When you buy/sell via an exchange, try to use limit orders (try not to use market orders). On some exchanges, like GDAX, limit orders have lower fees than market orders. On GDAX, limit orders are free as long as they don’t fill immediately. Meanwhile, market orders result in a .3% fee, which is better than the 1.4% that Coinbase charges but not as good as 0%, especially if you are day trading. If your exchange rewards you for using certain order types, aim to use them.
Leverage is money that a broker loans you. Unless you’re a professional trader, you should stay away from leverage until you’ve learned everything you can learn about making trades with your own money. While leverage can help you make greater profits with short cryptocurrency movements, it can also amplify your losses when the trade takes a wrong turn.
We will see Lightning Network dramatically increase adoption in 2018. That being said, it’s really hard to predict development cycles and we could see Lightning Network growing slowly this year and only hit its stride in 2019/2020. I predict currency coins that do not adopt Lightning Network will lose market share to Bitcoin. BCH, Dash, Pivx appear particularly vulnerable.
On the contrary, bitcoin has been widely used for international payments and is way more efficient compared to traditional cross-border remittance. According to Mr. Smith, “They use Western Union, traditional banks; It is slow and it is expensive. And there are people that can stop you from sending that money, whether that’s good or bad. With bitcoin, I can send money. It’s fast. It’s cheap. And frankly, no one can stop me.“
Let’s say on January 2, 2017, you owned $1,000 and exchanged it into euros (EUR) with another market trader at a rate of EUR€0.9565, leaving you with EUR€956.50. Then, on November 24, 2017, the value of the US dollar had fallen from EUR€0.9565 to EUR€0.8380, so you decide to exchange your euros back into US dollars. After finding someone willing to sell their US dollars for your euros, you carry out the exchange at the new price. Your EUR€956.50 is now worth $1,141.40, leaving you with a profit of a little more than 14%.
A common beginners’ mistake is to look at the coin’s price rather than the market cap. Just as you asses a company by its market cap performance, which is calculated by multiplying the number of shares times a single share’s price, the same is done for Altcoins. The number of existing coins in circulation times the coin’s price. For a low price coin, such as Ripple, there is solely a psychological influence on the buyers. There is no difference whether one Ripple equals one dollar, and there are a billion Ripples out, or if one Ripple equals a thousand dollars and there are million units of Ripple. Therefore, from now on, when examining coins for investment on CoinMarketCap, look mainly at the more substantial figure, which is the market cap, and focus less on the price for one coin.
The Coinbase smartphone app, however, offers a diverse feature set beyond what the Coinbase website delivers. Using the Coinbase app, which is available for both iOS and Android devices, it’s possible to purchase and store Bitcoin via in-app purchase functionality. In addition to Bitcoin, the Coinbase app also offers investors the ability to purchase either Etherium or Litecoin, the two most popular altcoins on the market.

The top of the order book will show you the lowest price at which someone is willing to sell a cryptocurrency, and the highest price at which someone is willing to buy it — but that doesn’t mean you can buy or sell the amount you want at that price. In fact, the amounts of a cryptocurrency that people are offering to buy or sell at the top of the order book are often quite small, which means that, if you’re trying to buy or sell a larger amount, you’ll have to go deeper into the order book: finding a counterparty who’s offering a price that isn’t as good as the “market price.”

Leverage is money that a broker loans you. Unless you’re a professional trader, you should stay away from leverage until you’ve learned everything you can learn about making trades with your own money. While leverage can help you make greater profits with short cryptocurrency movements, it can also amplify your losses when the trade takes a wrong turn.

BTC remains the undisputed lynchpin of the whole crypto industry as its market cap comprises a staggering 43 percent of the whole digital currency market. Regulators around the globe have put BTC under increased scrutiny as official from the majority of nations are trying to devise strategies on how to regulate bitcoin along with other cryptocurrencies. Even though bitcoin has endured a rough 2018 so far, having plummeted over 60 percent since its December heights, it remains the most feasible option for crypto investors, according to Mr. Smith.

Fiat Currency is still a thing; BTC isn’t legal tender; we don’t live in a Libertarian utopia; Governments and Banks aren’t as into Bitcoin as you. If you get caught up in the Bitcoin craze, it can easy to forget that the world’s governments aren’t super stoked on Bitcoin. Libertarians, Tech Geeks, Gangsters, these people are bullish on Bitcoin; world governments and banks, not so much. Last I checked, world governments had a little more power. Betting against them is a risky bet. As we move into the future states have started embracing Bitcoin and crypto, but there is no plan for a state-less state built upon digital currency. Digital currency is at best a supplemental asset class. Be realistic about the potential future here, it is bright, but it is likely not to look like your specific flavor of utopia.
If you’re new to cryptocurrency, you were probably sucked into this rabbit hole for one of three reasons: You heard about the hype regarding Bitcoin, Litecoin or another very popular coin and you wanted to be one of the first adopters of a potentially world-changing piece of technology. You saw the returns that people were getting from cryptocurrencies and heard…
A quick look at the Bitcoin price over the last few years reveals a strong upward trend, but also times where the price was over and undervalued. Since most buyers and sellers are regular people and not professional traders, the cryptocurrency market is extremely sensitive to media hype and news stories. When the news is good, people rush to buy overvalued cryptocurrencies. When something bad happens, they panic and sell their coins at below their true value.
It’s even crazier that traditional strategies that are used in valuing stocks don’t exactly apply to the crypto market. For instance, when valuing stocks, one can do a fundamental analysis by using ratios such as the price to earnings ratio P/E, debt ratios among others. These are concepts that don’t apply to the crypto markets. So can you value cryptos and make money in this highly volatile, but lucrative market? The answer is YES. Here are 4 tips on how to do so.
Now that you have identified the coins to invest in, you need to find an entry point for your investment. Technical analysis has always been the best strategy for finding an entry point when investing in financial assets. The best way to use technical analysis in finding an entry point is to understand candle stick patterns. For instance, if you are looking to buy Bitcoin, then a bullish engulfing candle stick pattern on the weekly chart would be a good indicator that it is time to enter the market.
The exchange offers its own coin termed as BNB (Binance coin). Being a centralised exchange, you can get decent discounts while conducting trade in their own tokens i.e. BNB. Before investing through any exchange, your major concern might be the fee structure. Thanks to Binance, as it offers a standard trading fee of only 0.1% which can further be reduced if the payment is conducted in BNB. Moreover, you can register and operate on both web and mobile (Android and iOS) interfaces which are very simple and user-friendly.
Bitsquare is a user-friendly peer to peer exchange that allows you to buy and sell bitcoins in exchange for fiat currencies or cryptocurrencies. Bitsquare markets itself as a truly decentralized and peer to peer exchange that is instantly accessible and requires no need for registration or reliance on a central authority. Bitsquare never holds user funds and no one except trading partners exchange personal data. The platform offers great security with multisig addresses, security deposits and purpose-built arbitrator system in case of trade disputes. If you want to remain anonymous and don’t trust anyone, Bitsquare is the perfect platform for you. Check out the Bitsquare FAQ
Hey, Will, I like this! Thanx for the info. I’m somewhat new to cryptos but not to investing — my Dad invested in the stock market since I was a kid and as an adult I was a registered investment advisor representative for a large US institution. One conclusion I’ve come to is that the skills and approach for crypto investing are no different than those for the stock market. I use the same strategies and analyses I use for stocks and etf’s and feel completely at home in the crypto market. Yes, I deal with more brokerage accounts, etc., but the principles are the same.
The Verge (XVG) technology revolves around providing an incredibly safe, private, and fast digital payment transactions – on an everyday basis. It offers all individuals and businesses a fast, efficient, and a decentralized option to make and receive direct payments in an average 5-second window per transaction. It runs on open-source technology, it is not a private company, and it isn’t funded by pre-mined coins. This is one of the reasons why people are so excited about it, all of its development, marketing, and other endeavors are completely done by the community – for the community.
Don’t be greedy. No one ever lost money taking a profit. As a coin begins to grow, the greed inside us grows along with it. If a coin increases by 30%, why not consider taking profit? Even if goals are set to 40% or 50%, you should at least pull out some of the profit on the way up in case a coin doesn’t reach the goal. If you wait too long or try to get out at a higher point, you risk losing profit you already earned or even turning that profit into a loss. Get into the habit of taking profits and scouting for re-entry if you want to continue reaping potential profits.